Phantom Touch
by spero spiro
Summary: AU. Axel spent years trying to forget that kind of pain, and Roxas spent those same years drowning in it. Sequel to Ill Repute. AxelRoxas
1. Falter

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: Welcome to the sequel of _Ill Repute_! If you haven't read the aforementioned, then you will definitely not be able to make heads or tails of this story. For those who are rejoining us, while the first story had one specific tone to it, this story takes a different outlook altogether. The overtones of _Ill Repute_ are now undertones, and things unresolved before are now open to resolutions. Questions of Roxas's past and repressed memories and Sora's influence on Roxas and their relationship are all ready to be taken, along with the most pressing question of all left over from the ending: What about Axel and Roxas? Fear not, dear readers, because I'm all ready to start up a new story with new tones and new characters and situations. Thank you for joining me!**

**I'll ask for some amount of forgiveness if there are some errors or confusing parts in this first chapter. In my haste to get it written and up, most of the chapter was written in a hospital room, with an IV in my hand (which hurt), and all of it was written under the influence of some strong pain killers. Once I'm off the pain killers, if there are any complaints, I'll go back over the chapter and see what I can do. Thanks!**

**Warnings: Some adult subject matter. Angst. Axel/Roxas. Riku/Sora. Course language. **

**Disclaimer: I only own the alternate universe plot in which I use for this story, and not the characters, nor the Kingdom Hearts franchise, nor any affiliated characters. Please don't sue. This disclaimer extends to the end of this story.**

**Description: AU. Axel spends every day and every night forgetting it. Roxas spends that same time remembering it. Sequel to Ill Repute. AxelRoxas**

"_I, I dont know why I miss you so much. Yeah I, I dont know why I still feel your touch. You, you left me feeling high and dry with nothing, nothing but the question why. Yeah you, I guess you had another direction." –Rooster, "Deep and Meaningless"_

**Chapter One: Falter**

Breathe in. Step. Breathe out. Step. Breathe in…

"Roxas!"

The sound of heavy boots halted in the center of the concrete sidewalk. Their owner turned to look at the person who had called out to him. "Hey, Riku." It was more of a nonchalant comment than a greeting, but the taller young man just returned it with a small smile.

"Sora's been hoping to run into you, you know." He caught up with the blond with a few long strides. "He heard that you got another letter. Wants to make sure you're alright."

Roxas appreciated his twin's concern; really, he did. Sora was probably his favorite person in the whole world, but since Sora moved in with Riku, and Roxas found his own apartment, they saw considerably less of one another than either would like. Sora found reasons to seek out his brother and spend time with him. The brunet was cheerful and loving and perpetually feeling guilty for the years of abuse Roxas had endured at the hands of their father for the sake of saving Sora from the same fate. Roxas hadn't remembered any of this for a long time, but Sora had, and Sora decided that if Roxas had had to bear the pain, he would bear the blame. It was for that reason that Roxas chose not to tell him that there were a few things he remembered; spontaneously recovered memories of things that he really didn't much want to remember, now that he knew some of them.

So, Sora's concern for him was natural. Sora had been the one who found him sobbing in the streets of Destati, covered in dirt and tears and falling apart in his misery when… when… Roxas found that it was still difficult to think about that day. Or the days that followed. He shook his head and smiled at Riku. Maybe he appreciated Sora's concern, but Sora worried about it enough. He didn't need to anymore.

"I'm okay, Riku. I didn't even open it." That was, of course, a lie. But Riku didn't need to know that. Sora didn't need to know it was just another letter filled with indifferent words and bland phrases that really meant nothing to the sender. And yet, Roxas wouldn't throw away a single one.

A silver eyebrow raised, but Riku adjusted his bag and kept walking with Roxas. "You should have dinner with Sora and me tonight. Sora misses you a lot."

"He moved out over six months ago…" Roxas mused. "Does he still really miss me that much?"

"Yeah, we never see much of you because of your job, and classes." Riku cocked his eyebrow again and smiled faintly. "I kind of miss you, too. So, what do you say?"

"Who's cooking?"

"Both of us, of course."

Roxas paused. On one hand, he really just wanted to reply to that letter. Use his time to write another letter full of emotions and bitter sentiments about things that had happened over three years before to someone who didn't really care about those things anymore. On another, he had a paper for his Abnormal Psychology class due at the end of the long weekend… But he really did just want to go spend time with his brother. The letter could wait. There was time for the paper later. He smiled faintly.

"I'd love to."

Riku actually looked relieved, and Roxas briefly thought that maybe his mask of indifference may have slipped and Riku had seen that things from the past were still actually tender and sore. "You want to head over there now?"

Roxas looked down at his bag and nodded. "Yeah. That'd be great."

It was fortunate that Roxas and Sora didn't live too far away from one another, otherwise the walk to Riku and Sora's apartment would have been much more awkward for Roxas, who was thinking about the opened envelope in his bag and what he could say in response. But they had both chosen to stay close to the university, and so their choices were limited, and the walk wasn't long and in the same direction Roxas had been heading anyway.

Riku led through the hallway, and slid his key into the door of the apartment, but never got the chance to open it on his own. Evidently, Sora had been waiting for his lover with great impatience.

"Did you ask hi—Roxas!" His smile was infectious and he tugged Roxas into a tight hug. "I'm glad you decided to come. Are you okay?" Sora inquired, pulling both into the apartment and taking Roxas's bag. The blond silently protested, tugging his bag back with an apologetic smile.

"I've got some stuff I need to work on."

Sora shot a look of what almost seemed like pity at his brother before nodding and walking away and into the kitchen. "Riku! Let's get started so we can eat soon!"

Roxas frowned; Sora knew him too well sometimes, and it made discretion difficult. Some things were better left private, but Roxas wasn't sure that Sora understood "private" so much when it came to his brother's emotional wellbeing. At least Sora's understanding and pity meant that he could be left alone to…

_To what, Roxas?_ He thought bitterly, setting his bag on the desk that sat in the "study" room. He pulled out the emotionless letter and scanned over it again, before pulling out a blank sheet of white stationary and a black pen. Out of habit with letters for this particular person, he signed the bottom first with his name, and then moved back to the top, two lines down, and began writing the letter.

_I'm glad to hear that your studies are still progressing nicely, and that you will be graduating on time next spring. I recall that you had always hoped to graduate from college, with the chance of having a future. I have the same goals for myself, and I'm glad to say that I'm doing well to finish on time myself. Sora is doing well, and he, as always, would send his wishes if he knew for sure I was writing this letter. I have the feeling that he and Riku are still getting closer, and I sometimes wonder if that's possible. I don't deny that I am very jealous of their relationship, but I guess it's a remnant of regret that I could possibly be approaching that level of happiness, were it not for past events we both remember so clearly. _

Roxas set down his pen, rubbing his temples, where a headache was beginning to pound within him. Sometimes he thought that he was too bitter about things, and that maybe he was causing the recipient of this letter more pain by constantly reminding them of his bitterness.

_I regret that I don't have much to say in this letter, but I, as always, wait for your responses. My feelings remain as deep and confident as always, as you should already know, but I am sure they are just as meaningless as ever to you. Wish you the best, and hope to hear from you soon._

_Roxas_

He paused a moment, pen hovering over two lines below his name. This letter seemed as bland and meaningless as the letter sitting open and already crinkled from multiple re-readings, but, as only Roxas and its recipient knew, it was much sharper and bitter than his previous letters had been. Roxas set the pen back onto the paper and wrote a few more words.

_PS: Is three years long enough to wait for a return visit to Destati?_

The postscript was seemingly harmless, but as Roxas steeled himself for the worst part of writing these letters, he knew it was probably the most venomous thing he'd ever written in a letter. Maybe he was trying to cause intentional pain. Maybe he was only reciprocating his own broken heart to this person who had almost carelessly broken it. Maybe Roxas really just wanted a visit.

He thought it was all of the above as he closed his eyes and scribbled across the top line the hardest words of all to write.

_Dear Axel,_

**End Chapter One**


	2. Pretend

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: So, compared to the updates for _Ill Repute_, I know I seem a lot slower now. However, since I was in England during half of May and half of June for study abroad, the time came for the final paper to be written… And when a paper needs to be written, nothing else does until that paper is done. My muses are bitches like that, even though I can't write the paper until the last minute. And then two weeks have passed with me being unable to write anything, not even the paper that's stopping me from writing anything else in the first place. It's not fun. But now I'm back at work and I don't have papers to write, so there is plenty of time to finish nice things like chapters for this story, and _Push You, Pull Me_, and drabbles for _Association_, and stories for _Rain, Rain_. **

**I love summer.**

"_You trade me away… for the love of a god, you said, not a letter from an occupant."—The New Pornographers, "Letter From an Occupant"_

**Chapter Two: Pretend**

"And so I told him that I just wasn't interested in him like that, because I'm with _someone else_. Just like that!" She was touching my hand. "Do you know who it is I was talking about?" She giggled and tugged cheerfully on my fingers. "_You_, of course!" I pulled my hand away, too violently for smooth games; too obviously distracted and uninterested. I didn't feel like playing games anyway, really. That was all it really was these days, anyway, just a long, tired game.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." I waved the same hand I'd just taken away from her in front of her face. She watched it, surprised.

"Axel…" She whispered. "What's wrong with you?"

I stood up, scraping the chair legs across the floor with a long squeal when the chair was shoved back. "You shouldn't have told him that." I told her coolly and started toward the door. I heard her chair clatter to the floor and the sounds of tapping feet as she ran to catch up with me. Fuck, there were tears in her eyes.

"Axel!" She was seizing my hand and pulling on me, crying and making a total nuisance of herself. "I… I… Why are you doing this to me?"

I pulled my hand away again and stared at her, almost contemptuously. She couldn't understand why I couldn't stand her. I hardly did.

"What did I do wrong?" She sobbed, clutching her hands to her breasts.

I smirked, careless to how she was feeling. It had been her mistake to get too attached, not mine. Her fault she'd put too much of her heart in, and now it was going to snapped at and broken. "Don't worry. You'll get over it. I'm just not into you." I turned and kept walking.

"Axel…" She moaned sadly. "What if I… love you?"

I scowled. "You don't." I'd heard those words before, and the people who said them didn't mean them… I felt the scowl soften into a sad frown. Except one. Except the first one. I shook my head. "You don't," I repeated.

I had a horrible habit of breaking hearts, I realized as I left her and didn't care. She definitely wasn't the first. And I wasn't sure about the last. Maybe I'd really find someone who could mean those words (again), and accept me for me (again), and I could love (again). Maybe, but probably not.

How many chances do you think we get, anyway?

I shoved my hands in my pockets and the sun beat down on me brutally. Today was not my day. In my bag, which had never left my shoulder, was the reason for the temper today and every day one of those stupid letters came. I hated them. I hated their sender for sending them. I hated the words printed on the page that stung like thorns and bled like wounds I'd left. I hated them because they were true. I hated them because I couldn't get rid of any of them. I hated them because, more than I hated anything about them or the person who sent them, I hated myself.

"Stupid bastard." I growled, and I tried to make those words for the person who had signed their name at the bottom of that hated letter, but they just turned around and stuck me in the heart instead. And I don't even _have_ a heart anymore, I'm sure.

I tried not to think too much (because they were hateful thoughts, and I couldn't pretend they were just for _him_) on the walk to my apartment just outside campus. I walked into the building, climbed three flights of stairs and stuck my key into the worn door. The door swung open, and I immediately knew that my roommate was home from the way the cold spread over me when the door was halfway opened.

"I'm back." I called dully, kicking off my shoes by the front closet and stepping further into the empty living room. "Where are you?" I called, dropping my bag beside the couch and flopping onto it listlessly.

"Right here." A blond head stuck its head over the couch and looked down pitifully at me. "You look like hell. Another break up?" Seifer lifted himself over the back of the couch and sat on my legs. Jackass.

"She thinks so."

He laughed and I bent my knees to bring my abused legs back toward me. "Man, I don't know why you do this to all of them."

"They don't interest me."

"And who does?" His eyes were piercing and prodding.

"No one." I stared idly up to the ceiling.

"So, what happened?"

"I got another letter."

"From that kid in the system?"

"He's out now. Has been for at least a year."

"Why don't you just throw away those damn letters?"

"I can't." I turned and stared at the coffee table.

"Why not? Can't be that hard, and if he's really bugging you, you should."

I sighed and sat up, picking up the bag and retrieving the letter from it. The words had been sharp, as usual, but the post script got under my skin and was killing me. It was a long, curved knife through the heart, with a twist for good measure. "He writes, 'Is three years long enough to wait for a return visit to Destati?'." I threw the paper onto the table. "Son of a _bitch_."

"So?"

"He knows I wouldn't go back to that shit hole if the world depended on it."

"What did you do to this kid, anyway?"

I laid my forehead in my hands. "Broke his heart."

Seifer raised an eyebrow. "Big surprise there."

I gave him a snotty smirk. "Broke mine doing it."

"Really?" Seifer looked genuinely surprised. "I didn't think you really swung that way."

I shot him a solemn look. "Asshole." Seifer knew better, but he was just covering up his surprise that maybe I had once had a heart of my own to be broken.

I waved him off as I scooped up the letter and headed for my room. "I need to lie down. It's been one hell of a day."

He leaned over the back of the couch. "You going to respond to that letter?"

"I don't know yet." I called over my shoulder.

"Gonna go to Destati?"

I flipped him off and slammed my door behind me.

I heard his laughing infiltrate my room, even through the walls and door. I dropped the paper into a box on my desk and stared for a moment at the collection of letters I'd received since he'd found my address through God-knows-whom. They were treasured, but bitter and angry; beloved and hated.

Contrary to what may be the common belief back in Destati, I had not really wanted to leave. I hadn't even gone back to Cid's place for what stuff I'd had there. I also hadn't planned on leaving before the funeral. Sometime while realizing that one of my friends was locked up in that death box and truly never going to live again, I decided that I couldn't stand to go back for another second. I wandered from place to place for the next week, until my birthday. I figured out the paperwork shit, got an apartment, and stayed well away from anyone I knew from that place until I left for school that fall.

I was guilty and heartbroken and a wreck for months, but I'd been strong and I'd kept the situation from being worse. Sometimes you have to amputate before things rot too much, and both halves can be saved. That's how I had written everything off and made things okay again to move on and try to heal. Which I hadn't. But everyone else involved would. Roxas would.

Roxas… Roxas… I laid out on my bed and closed my eyes. That was his name. His hated, treasured name. He was pretty much the only thing that still tied me to Destati and my past. He was the only one I talked to who probably understood most of me, and my past, and who I was. I hadn't talked to Demyx since the morning of The Funeral. Xaldin hadn't talked to anyone after he'd been the one to find the dead boy. Zexion? The dead boy in question. I didn't talk to Sora, Roxas's twin brother, after I left, though I guess we could have been friends, or acquaintances. There had been other boys in Cid's home, but I didn't keep up with them, either. There was no point. The ones that had already left didn't have reason enough to keep up with me.

Roxas, however, was a completely different case. I'd never been romantically involved with anyone before. I guess you could call it romantic, but you might think that someone with a romantic attachment to someone else would hesitate in abandoning that other person without an obvious care. Maybe all we'd ever really had was a purely sexual fling, and I had only deluded myself in thinking there was more. Roxas had had his doubts, and now—after the fact—I had mine.

I bent in half and peeled off my socks, throwing them furiously at my window. They hung themselves over the aloe plant that sat in my window like half-hearted ghosts staring mournfully at me. My lighter poked my thigh from the inside of my pocket and I pulled it out, turning it over in my hands for a minute before flicking the wheel and watching the flame burn on and on, though my finger was no longer resting on the wheel. I blew carefully and the flame went out.

"Bastard." I growled, throwing my head back against the pillow. This time, I couldn't even pretend the insult was for Roxas.

**End Chapter Two**


	3. Hollow Romantic

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: Guh. It's taken me forever to get updates done and up. I admit that work has consumed my life, but today is the first day I've had off in a week and a half, and most of those days begin at 6 am and don't end until I go to bed at or past midnight. Between that and preparing for a full-scale move to Florida, I just haven't been up to writing new chapters for anything. Chapter four will be on its way shortly after this one, and hopefully updates will come at better intervals than they have been.**

"_Mass romantic fool wears Foster Grants, his books on tape ring true, like everyone wants to say 'I love you' to someone on the radio. The first voice in the hollowed stars, now the one true loves, In the streetlight dawn, this street turns on." –The New Pornographers, "Mass Romantic"_

**Chapter Three: Hollow Romantic**

It's funny how something so simple and harmless as ink on paper can turn worlds upside down. Wars have been started, fought, and ended on paper for things more and less trivial than the one piece of paper clenched in my fist. My heart was pounding, even though the letter had come in the mail the day before. I'd only summoned the courage to open it a few moments before, and now the paper seemed to have morphed into my worst enemy for how tightly I was strangling in my grip.

A long, thin hand waved in front of my face and I jumped out of my stupor. At first, recognition failed me, but that only lasted an instant before I recognized Demyx standing in front of me, a little out of breath and smiling.

"Roxas…" He huffed, bursting into a wider grin and looking up at me with a wide smile. "I've been yelling for you since I got into the Quad."

I discreetly shoved the letter into my bag and offered a short smile. "Yeah… I was… distracted."

"You got mail." He pointed at my bag.

_Shit._

"Uh, yeah. Just a letter from a pen pal." Not a complete lie. Demyx didn't need to know it was Axel. Maybe that would hurt him more than he was. Maybe it would help him. Demyx hadn't really ever gotten over Zexion's suicide. Sometimes we'd catch him with a wistful, sad look in his eyes, looking out a window on an old, familiar hangout spot from when we lived with Cid, and we all knew what was wrong.

I didn't know that any of us had ever really recovered from the suicide, or the following disappearance of one of our own. What felt even worse was that I was the only one who had even gotten a farewell, however halfway, backwards, and unfeeling it had been. Axel hadn't known me more than some months, and I was it. Not his "brothers" that he'd known for years. Regardless, Demyx seemed to take it the hardest, next to Axel. Where Axel abandoned us in our, and his, time of despair, the rest of us had bonded tighter than a family, and we held onto that, even years later. It was in that aftermath that Sora really became my brother. Before then, it was just a formality, and an unconscious connection tying us together.

Demyx had fallen into quiet step with me when I started walking. "Going to the library?"

I looked over at him. He was looking out over the wide space of grass between the main administration building and the astronomy observatory, eyes blurred with memory or mangled thoughts, or wishful thinking. I looked back down at the cracked sidewalk.

"Yeah."

"You have a test?"

"I need to grab a few resources for a paper." I tried to recall what the precise guidelines were for the resources, but shook my head and stopped trying so hard. When had conversation with Demyx gotten so strained?

He looked at me, his smile as forced as the conversation had been. He slowed down and stopped to sit down on one of the benches. I sat down on the low, stone wall across from the bench.

"What's wrong?"

The same strange smile was sticking like old wallpaper over a sad face. "You're empty, Roxas."

"What?" I shifted my bag.

The smile fell away like a decrepit mask and now a sad frown looked up at the trees, where sunlight fell like stippling through the leaves. "Axel's not coming back, Roxas. You're holding onto an old dream that's never going to come true."

I felt a skip in my heart's beating before it pounded in my chest and made the blood roar through my ears, even as it tumbled down to my feet. "I can't help but… hope."

Demyx shook his head, and his eyes were eerily clear. "Do you love him?"

"Do I love him?" I echoed, searching myself for something. Anything that could prove that the years of waiting had some valid foundation.

Demyx stood up and started for the other direction. "You've wasted enough time waiting for him to come back, Roxas. We want you to be happy."

"We?"

"Me, and Riku, and Xaldin… Sora… Everybody. We've been worried about this for a long time… We just couldn't… say anything."

I nodded dumbly. "So, what happened?" The status quo had changed drastically, and I hadn't even known how it stood in the first place.

"Sora told me you've been exchanging letters with him…" Demyx pushed a stray lock of hair away from his face nervously. "I don't want you to get your hopes up that he'll come back and sweep you off your feet and rescue you, and you'll get to live happily ever after."

I scoffed and pulled the letter out of my bag and shoved it into his hands. "Hardly."

Demyx didn't look at the ink on the page, but stared even more intently at me. "Roxas…" He waved the letter around. "You still hope, because he's still talking to you."

I slumped my shoulders. "I almost don't care anymore."

Demyx threw the letter on the ground and ground the heel of his boot into it. I started to protest, but he seized my shoulders. "And that's why you've got to give it up. You're never going to get over him at this rate… Worse, you've already wasted some of your life on him… He's not coming back. He's not going to fix it. Please, Roxas, move on." He stepped aside and pointed to the wadded paper.

"_That_ is the beginning of a new chance for you. C'mon, Roxas… Take it. Take a chance on getting on with your life and being happy for the first time."

I looked down at the paper, torn and dirty and as broken up as I was. I slowly started nodding, then looked up at Demyx. "Yeah…" I took one last, long look at the paper and I couldn't remember what it had originally said, but the only words I could pick out from paragraphs of ink were three, stinging formations that probably had nothing to do with one another to start with.

_Never………………coming……………………back…._

And I'd had enough, anyway. The stare I gave Demyx was intense as I turned away from it.

"You're right." Up until that moment, the thought of moving on would have been hideous and too painful to even consider, but that moment was the right one, and I was ready.

Or, at least, I would be. I decided then that Demyx was even more right about my wasting my time and my life on Axel. And up until then, I had never considered myself a vengeful soul.

But when I walked away from that last letter with Demyx, leaving it to rot on the sidewalk, I knew that before I'd be able to go on, I was going to return the favor Axel had bestowed on me.

"_In the streetlight dawn, this street turns on."_

**End Chapter Three**


	4. The Place I'll Return to Someday

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: I can't thank you all enough for all the reviews, and the great patience you have for dealing with me and my sporadic updates. Since the last update, I've made a complete move to Florida, started classes, had my butt handed to me by mid-terms, and been sick more times than I can count with my fingers and toes. I'm now sick again, but with something that will easily be kicked, and my roommate and I are planning on moving at the beginning of December, due to a retarded number of issues with our current apartment that will seemingly never be fixed. That is going to suck, but I am hoping that writing comes easier than life has been in the future. **

"_Mass romantic fool, separated by sheets when the curtain calls you, speaking on the themes of stolen virtue missing from the radio. Now this romantic duel is into the streets, bon appetit, you've eaten me alive you realize. This is not the way. In the streetlight dawn, this beat turns on." –The New Pornographers, "Mass Romantic"_

**Chapter Four: The Place I'll Return To Someday**

Weeks passed between the last letter I'd sent Roxas and any semblance of a response. Maybe I'd thought briefly that he'd given up with the last letter, though I'd given no reason for him to abandon the hopes he'd held onto for so long. The letter I'd sent was as apathetic as ever, no change there. Sometimes I used the letters to Roxas as a diary of sorts. All I had to do was talk about the now, never mention the past (that was up to him), and release everything I held inside me from the _now_. I treated him like he was my past, and like I had to justify my present life to him with every word.

With every week that passed, I thought more and more about how I hadn't heard from Roxas, and more and more about my life before I started really _living_. I didn't forget everything that had happened, just pretended it hadn't. I didn't forget my roots, I just tore them out of my life and tried to run along without them. I lived a lie I was more than happy with, but I didn't try to lie to myself. I was as schizophrenic as ever, just one more thing to cover up and move along with. I hadn't had an episode in years, not since I finally left Destati. The lie I lived stabilized me, and in those weeks I heard nothing, I felt the lie slipping away and my life destabilizing all over again. Roxas and my past weren't good for me, but I already knew that there was no letting them go. I considered writing another letter, and had steeled myself to do so the day I saw him again.

He was standing idly at a bus stop across the street from my apartment complex the first time I saw him. Even though it was years later, I froze mid-step from the instant recognition. His hair was considerably shorter—more tame—and his clothes weren't so ragged. His scars were faded to a dull color that was barely a shade lighter than his skin tone, but I could see them as though they were as fresh as they had been three years before. It could easily have been anyone else, but somehow I _knew_. He looked at me and I felt a jolt of something I couldn't even begin to describe for a long time; some terrifying mix of fear, fury, pain, worry, and a thousand other things I barely knew were my own emotions. A bus pulled up to the stop and blocked him from my sight and I knew he was going to get on the bus and leave.

I threw my bag to the ground, books and pens and papers flying into the air as I leaped into the street, aiming to stop Roxas from even thinking about leaving on that bus and didn't even hear the loud blaring of car horns or feel my ribs and wrist crack when I rolled over the top of the truck that didn't miss me like the others did. The last thing I did hear was my own thoughts, long before I stopped seeing Roxas watching me lay in the street from the bus.

_Fuck. _

(o)

Beep.

Beep.

I tried to roll over onto my side and felt an angry scream of pain in my left wrist.

Okay. I tried rolling to the other side and felt a strong sense of discomfort. I lifted up my hand and tried opening my eyes to examine the source of discomfort. It took a few seconds to register that the longest needle I'd ever seen was inserted into the vein on the top of my hand. I followed the tubing up to a tall metal stand, where a bag of saline solution was hanging. I groaned and looked at my wrist, where a stiff bandage was wrapped tight around the joint. I tried sitting up and choked on my own scream. "F-Fuck." I breathed hoarsely.

"You're finally awake." I looked over to see Seifer lounging in a chair, an old issue of Playboy laying across his lap.

"They called you?" I whispered.

"Like they had anyone else to call. They told me you were in the hospital, so I came to claim the body. What the hell were you thinking, jumping into traffic? You've got serious issues." He sighed and dropped the magazine into a trashcan beside the chair. Four other magazines had already preceded the Playboy.

I started to protest and tell him what I thought, but he beat me in the race to speak.

"You're under suicide watch by the hospital staff. Want to tell me why we're going to have people checking on you for the next couple months? Classes didn't start too long ago, it's not mid-term."

I sighed. "I wasn't trying to kill myself."

A single eyebrow rose and Seifer picked up yet another magazine. "Right."

I shoved myself further back into my pillows. "Roxas was here."

He didn't even look up. "Who?"

"The kid."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. I just saw him. He was at the bus stop and I couldn't let him get on the bus. He saw me… I know he did. I just don't know what he wants." I looked up at the ceiling.

"Go back to sleep. The morphine will make it all okay."

"You're an asshole. I don't know why he'd show up here after all this time, with no word, no reason, no nothing."

"And I don't know why you're so worried about it. Maybe you were wrong."

"I'm not. I can't be. It was him."

"Go to sleep."

I couldn't even try to argue with Seifer; he was just too firm. I closed my eyes and tried to forget the experience, but the splitting pain in my ribs kept me awake and staring up at the blank ceiling in frustration.

"Seifer?"

"What?"

"What if it was him?"

"Then he finally came to see you. Does that make you happy?"

"Maybe."

I was lying; really, I was ecstatic that he might have come, finally. I wouldn't have even known I wanted him there with me until I saw him that day. I probably would have never even known until I felt the stirrings of things I'd set aside for years: fear, self-denial, self-hatred, pain, fury, that choking feeling you get when you feel close to sobbing, but also hope and the true, heavy knowledge of what I didn't have as compared to what I'd give anything for. I'd lived years without those things, knowing that they were the destabilizing forces in my life. By removing that which made me human, I had removed what had made me a man, and all these things fell onto my shoulders with a crushing weight.

_Fuck._ My mind felt as though it were collapsing underneath the weight. What hadn't occurred to me when I left in my own pain, was what kinds of pain I would leave in my wake. I felt selfish. Hadn't I always been so hopeful for the future? Hadn't it been Roxas who had had amnesia to run away from the bad things in life? When had our roles reversed and caused me to be the self-centered son-of-a-bitch with a habit of running and lying to myself?

"I deserved this."

Seifer looked up. "Pardon?"

I closed my eyes. I'd healed from Zexion's suicide a long time before, but I held onto the pain as though it were the only thing to keep me afloat after I gave everything away in pain. "I think this was just the beginning of payback…" I whispered as the pain medications began flowing through my body again and I drifted toward restless sleep, and when I woke up, I didn't remember any of my thoughts, just the heavy feeling of failed responsibility and dread for the future.

"_Now this romantic duel's into the street… In the streetlight dawn, this beat turns on."_

**End Chapter Four**


	5. Drown

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: So, I got a review for this story ****(several, actually) recently, and I was reminded that this story hasn't been updated since October. So, crap. Every time I say I **_**want**_** to write more, I don't. Really. So, no promises this time. Please just bear with me as I chug through all the crap going on (I'm in England again, so yay! for muse movement!), the foremost being that I don't exactly have a computer of my own anymore, at least for the time being. So, again, bear with me, and I promise that things are picking up in the plot, and we're making some sort of progress toward answering the questions I wanted answered. **

_"Relapse. Prevent. Trigger. Intent. Now, __**drown**__. High-strung; say x amount of words. Your solar, bipolar, panic disorder seems harder and harder and harder… Still you try to control it, your mold, your mold. Yeah, you shape to mold… You're a symptom, superficial to what they call knowing you. Minus the speed, could you imagine the phobia? Oh… you're ignoring me…" – Blue October, "X Amount of Words"_

**Chapter Five: Drown**

It's always been hard enough to just get by in life… When I was with my Dad, and Sora, it was bad then. When Axel left, it was like I lost everything I'd ever had in my whole life. He was my life-buoy as I floated away in the ocean of my despair. The world was _horrible_, I thought, and all I ever had to do was swim and swim, and maybe I'd survive in the end. Maybe, eventually, I'd hit solid ground and things would clear away and I'd be okay. A few months, and he'd become my _everything_, and I had clung to him for all my life was worth. It just hadn't been enough.

Zexion's suicide unhinged everyone. No one had to speak for days. There was no humor at our 'home'. I didn't blame Axel for leaving, just for lowering my defenses, ripping out my heart and leaving me to bleed, lost in the streets of Destati. Part of me died that day, and I mourned the loss of my heart and the love I'd felt for him. It had been real, even if I hadn't wanted to admit it before then. It had been real enough to kill me, and where my heart had been, a void remained. I hated him. I hated what he had done to me… Made me helpless… Made me miserable. I wrote to him because I still hoped, of course, and that was enough to stave off bitter hatred for a long time. Demyx intervened, of course, and he was right. Everyone had been right in telling me to pick up my life and keep going. I had made so much progress, why should I have let something from my past keep me from a bright, shining future?

I had never learned to let go, that's why. What I could feel and what I could remember became of complete importance to me… That empty, abandoned feeling I had felt… I couldn't let go of that feeling or the memory it came from. It was pain beyond pain… No physical pain could compare, and yet it stretched over my brain, into my heart, and crossed the threshold to my physical body. I felt it, and I couldn't shake it. I was fucking _drowning_ in that pain, in _him_, and he didn't even give a single goddamn care. All I ever got was bland letter, unresponsive to my hints to my pain… to what he had caused. I finally resorted to angry jabs and pleading for him to come back. It didn't matter if he didn't want to see Cid, or Xaldin, or Demyx, or anyone, as long as he saw me; as long as he stopped running from the past and accepted that maybe I could be part of his future too. I knew who he was. I knew what he could do. I knew the deepest darkest parts of him, and I had still cared.

I buried myself under a thousand thoughts as the train took me back to Destati. I closed my eyes and pretended that I'd gotten closure from seeing him one more time. Throwing away the letters and burning the mementos hadn't been enough. I needed to see him, needed him to see me and _know_. A second was long enough, and I pretended not to care about the truck that had hit him, or the cars that had swerved away and smashed together. I pretended not to care, and closed my eyes and wished with a morbid fervor that he could feel _half_ the pain I had felt. He had run to catch me, which told me something…

He remembered. Maybe he even regretted, just a little. For the hours it took to return back to Destati, I thought about him and pretended I didn't care. It was, of course, a lie to myself. It was a lie to think I had received any joy from seeing him hurt, and that I had received closure from that. I didn't… but I could pretend I did.

When the train finally slowed to a stop, I collected what little I had brought and stepped onto the platform. Sora was waiting, Riku a few feet behind him.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" He looked indignant, unhappy, and worried.

I shrugged my back up onto my shoulder. "It was just a quick trip. I felt like just going somewhere. I had a free day today." I walked casually toward the exit.

"That's not what I meant." He hissed, following me. "It's not good for you to be doing this to yourself. I suppose you saw him then?"

"No." I lied. "It was just a trip out of the city. You're making it into something it's not."

"Then why did they call Cid to tell him that Axel had been hit by a truck the same day you just happened to be in town?" Sora looked a little angry, but that might have been more worries spilling over.

"Is that so?" I asked mildly, feigning innocence. "That's the first we've heard from him since he left, isn't it? Funny."

"He didn't make the call, Roxas." Riku's voice was quiet and solemn. Riku may not have completely understood, but Sora would have explained it to him. "The hospital did. He was unconscious when they called… But, of course, he's in the system, so they called Cid. He couldn't have told them not to."

"Cid's gone to make sure he's okay."

"He hasn't seen him in years…" I mumbled.

"That doesn't change anything." Sora shot me a _look_. "It didn't for you. You went today, didn't you?" It wasn't exactly accusing, but I couldn't find it in me to take offense.

I shrugged. "It wasn't to see him."

Sora stared at me intensely. "You shouldn't lie to yourself, Roxas." His tone told me the rest of what he'd meant. _You shouldn't, but you can lie to yourself and anyone else, but you can't lie to me._

I didn't give, though. "Well, I'm not going to see him now, either, if that's what you're worried about."

Neither of them responded, and we walked in silence. I kicked a small bit of concrete and watched it skid ahead of me. _I don't have to care about him anymore. I don't have to think about him anymore. I don't have to care anymore. I don't have to think anymore. I don't have to._

I kicked the rock again and realized that the day was suddenly very cold, and breathing was very difficult. A cloud passed over the early evening sun. I shivered and struggled to break free of short gasps of breath. No one seemed to notice.

Sora and Riku left me before I got to my apartment, and I climbed the stairs alone, heart racing in my chest and my breath hardly enough to fill my lungs and sustain me enough to get to my bed… I would be safe there. I'd be okay.

When I fell into it, I didn't expect anything but relief, but it never came. I was paralyzed and I felt pain gush from my heart with every beat. My heart beat harder and harder, just to spite me. Just to show me that I had been wrong for so long to think that it hadn't been there. It had been the source of my pain, not its absence. I couldn't move, and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't think about anything but _him_. I think I slept, because the nightmarish visions I had weren't real, but maybe they were hallucinations from limited oxygen.

I felt nothing but surging, ever moving pain for hours, maybe days. Time started again when someone came pounding on my door. I didn't move. It was probably Sora, or Riku, or probably Demyx… Probably coming to chastise me for going to see him… Well, I thought, they should have tried cold turkey themselves. After a long time of feeling it, pain is addictive… When it's gone, you don't know what to do with yourself anymore.

There it was again, that pounding. I rolled over, overjoyed to feel real breathing returning to me, even though my chest hurt bad enough to keep me from breathing any more than I was.

"Open up, Roxas! Ah know yer in there!" _Cid?_ I rolled off the bed and stumbled to the door and slid open the bolt. "'Bout fuckin' time." He muttered, barely loud enough for me to hear.

I opened the door. "Cid…" I didn't know what else I could have said right then. Nothing really seemed right, but I abandoned the door and collapsed on my couch.

He looked around my apartment, but didn't say anything. It wasn't badly furnished, since it was owned by the school, but I hadn't done dishes in days, and my roommates had probably had some kind of gathering in the living room, judging by the bottles of beer scattered around the area. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he closed the door and sat down in one of the chairs around the dining room table.

"Ah suppose yuh've heard about Axel, then?" He didn't really show any expression, and it wasn't exactly a question, but he expected me to answer.

"Yeah, Sora told me." I was looking at my fingernails.

"He said he saw yuh, an' tha's why it happened."

"He probably just imagined it." It was getting harder to hold onto this lie, and it was harder to lie to Cid. I couldn't stand to look at him.

"He never had much of an imagination." Cid's response wasn't cold, but it made its point. I frowned. "Sora said yuh were there, too."

I gave a little, grudgingly. "He saw me getting on a bus."

"So yuh did see 'im." Cid shook his head. "Been enough goin' on in yer life for you to go out openin' up old wounds."

I wouldn't look at him. "It doesn't matter. It's all over now."

Cid stood up slowly and walked to the door. "He doesn't think it is."

Something exploded in my chest. "Why should I care what he thinks? He's the one that fucking left, and left us to deal with this mess! He turned tail and ran and never bothered to care enough to fucking look back to see that maybe he hurt us more than we were already hurting!" I was on my feet and an angry hotness poured into my blood.

"I know you're hurting, but there's no reason to make it worse for yourself." He paused long enough to open the door. "No need to make it worse for him." He shut the door behind him and I didn't move as I heard him descend the stairs.

I threw a bottle at the door and it smashed against the frame. "_He doesn't deserve it!_" I screamed, and I knew my throat was going to be hoarse from that alone. I felt everything rush together in my blood. _Angerpainhatredpainfurypainadrenalinepain_. I stalked across the room and bolted the door again before returning to my room. I think I felt something stirring in my heart, just enough to make me think for a second before closing that door again.

_I don't love him anymore. He ruined that years ago. He ruined _me_ years ago. I don't need this. I don't need him. I don't want him. I don't need him._

I ignored the tightness in my chest and the pain that was still beating through my whole body. I was _stronger_ than this… this stupid emotion. Hadn't I been through enough to deserve some kind of freedom from pain? _He_ had ruined that, I thought vehemently. But I was starting to regret that I had ever gone, or that he had seen me, and I felt bad that he was hurt because of me. I couldn't pretend I hadn't seen his face before, even after, he had been hit. It had been twisted in recognition, pain, anger, longing, and a shining glow of caring, and it had made me feel a kind of pain I hadn't in a long time.

It wasn't the sharp pain that pierced through me, that I had felt for so long. It was a dull ache from the deepest part of me, and it was _gratifying_ and wonderful, unbearable and unceasing; I felt both tormented and elated. I knew what it was, no matter how I denied it. It was the reason I couldn't stop thinking about him and what had happened, and why I felt guilty and unhappy for causing it. It was smothering me slowly, aching deep in my bones and growing evermore unbearable now it was coupled with that sharp, heart-wrenching pain.

It was beautifully horrific, and I was drowning in it over and over with every breath I took.

**End Chapter Five**


	6. Surfacing

**Phantom Touch **

_"__Your brain is faulty wiring, the reason for tiring. Keep treat__ing the curse, imagine the worst__Systematic, sympathetic, q__uite __pathetic, apologetic, paramedic.__ Your heart is prosthetic. __A plate of quite peculiar on a dish of my own.__A tablespoon of feat__her, tickle me to the bone. __Give me recipes for happy __with the chemicals gone. __Drinking freedom from a bottle to the tune of __belong__…" –Blue October, "X Amount of Words"_

**Chapter Six: Surfacing**

I woke slowly, the sun having traversed its way directly into my bedroom via my open window, and kicked the blankets off in misery at their sweltering confinement. That movement took a lot out of me and I collapsed back onto the pillow, staring at the shitty spackle job on the ceiling until a brief pounding on my door shook me unpleasantly.

"Hey, you idiot," _Seifer_. "You gonna go to class today?"

I stopped for a moment, seriously considering the possibility of giving the proverbial middle finger to my classes for another day, even though the tight bandages on my torso kept my broken ribs from getting in the way. "Yeah…" I finally mumbled back, swinging my legs over the side of the bed with a groan. "Fuck…"

Cid had come to see me in the hospital after I had woken up and reinforced the feelings of guilt and the inkling that I'd fucked up something serious that I had woken up with. I sat up on the bed, trying not to bend too much, recalling the incident with mortified shame. My old caretaker hadn't sat down through the entire encounter, instead taking his time strolling around the room, peering at me closely, and altogether appraising what the past few years had done to me.

It was only in the shaming light of his eyes that I really started to realize that I was a seriously selfish son of a bitch. I told him everything I remembered from getting hit by the damn truck, including every idiotic detail of my running into the street to get to what I thought was Roxas. Cid had looked surprised, and I confirmed that I was pretty sure that it had been him, for what it was worth.

I told him about our correspondence over time, and that I hadn't heard from him in a while, that I hadn't given him hope about my coming home, and that I still never planned to go back. Cid never sat down, and he never interrupted me, or even told me what he thought about my leaving without telling anyone.

In the corner, where Seifer had carelessly thrown it, was a bag filled with nasty memories Cid had brought with him. "You left a lot of your stuff," was all he told me when he set it on the desk in the hospital room. I had frowned at the time, and I frowned again when I looked at the disheveled bag. What had Cid thought was so important for me to have? I had left everything on purpose, and I certainly didn't want to taint my new life with complications from the old. A lot of counseling at that time of my life had only gotten me through the everyday shit with only a few occurrences of raging alternates shoving forward. After I left, without the anchors of that life holding me down, I went to college, and I started seeing new counselors, different psychologists. Slowly, a trust relationship had been formed, and I had left those parts of me as what they were: a part of me. Surely Roxas could be enough to blow apart not only my life, but also that stability of my inner complexities. I wasn't stupid, and I wasn't about to just hand myself over to that again.

But _fuck_, I was tempted by that bag in the corner, and I was still in love with Roxas, and seduced by the thrill of letting someone else take over for me at some point or another when I really needed it.

BANGBANGBANG. Seifer was back at the door.

"Hey, are you gonna get the hell out of here or mope another day?"

A sigh. "I'm coming." I stood up and gave another longing look at the bag, trying to decide whether I wanted to look in it or not. I dressed quickly and snatched up my school bag, carefully avoiding putting any pressure on my abdomen and favoring my left wrist, which was still tightly wrapped. I stared at the bag for a long moment again before grabbing it up, making my decision in an instant.

As we walked toward the school, I carelessly tossed the bag into the dumpster, ignoring Seifer's curious look. "I don't need any of that shit anymore."

"So you're not going to worry about why that kid was here?"

"I know what _that kid_ was here." And knowing was what scared the hell out of me. If my pain was still there, and I was over things that had happened years before… I didn't want to think about what Roxas was enduring. And, frankly, I couldn't blame him for what he wanted, and what he was feeling.

"You do, do you?" Seifer sounded skeptical. I wasn't sure he really bought my story of Roxas being there.

"Yeah. And I can't blame him if he wants to get some revenge. I fucked him over pretty bad back then." It hurt pretty bad to admit that out loud, even though I'd spent a good portion of the week since the accident acknowledging it to myself.

"Well, you always were a heartless bastard." Seifer noted airily.

"You're no sweetie, either." I shot back, a little injured. I looked at the growing mass of buildings that was the university in front of us and stopped. I had made my decision to try and make things up to Roxas, because I didn't want to be remembered as the bastard I had made him feel I was. But, it was in that particular instant that I realized that I really didn't just want us to be cool again. I really did care about him… I didn't want to because we were both pretty fucked up, but at least I was willing to leap into oncoming traffic to see him again. That, at least, meant something.

"You know," I paused for a moment, looking up at the sky. "It's Friday, I haven't been to classes all week, and I really don't give a damn."

Seifer stopped too, looking at me over his shoulder. "Suit yourself." He started walking again. "Just make sure you're back in time to go to your fucking classes on Monday."

At least he understood what I was doing, I thought, as I headed toward the train station instead of the school. When I got to the station, I bought a ticket and settled in one of the last cars of the train, trying not to think that what I was doing might be really counterproductive to years worth of counseling. At least once the train was speeding along the tracks I could allow myself to panic a little and contemplate taking a leap out of one of the doors. The unraveling had begun already, and I wasn't even in the same city as Roxas yet.

I slept the rest of the ride, calmly retrieving my books and computer from under my seat and tromping off the train. I had had every one of Roxas's addresses memorized since I left the halfway house, and it wasn't really that hard to find his apartment complex based on rusty memories of the city. Some things don't change that much, and even when they do, the shadows of what was once there still reaches out to you and guides you back to where it all started.

After checking mailboxes to make sure Roxas still lived there, I headed up the stairs toward his apartment. I paused outside his door, and the amusing thought that someone could burst out and see my indecisive ass standing outside his apartment occurred to me. I smiled wryly at the thought and rapped on the door in four quick, successive knocks, stepping out of sight of the peephole.

There was a pause (undoubtedly, someone checking the useless peephole), and the slide of the bolts before the door swung open. I felt my heart slide rapidly down into the floor in dread, suddenly apprehensive of what was going to happen now. I swallowed the lump in my throat and screwed up some courage as Roxas came into view, his blue eyes curiously seeking the person at his door.

When he saw me, I saw his expression flash several times between disbelieving pain and fury, and I knew that it was going to be a long road before we even got around to being "cool", let alone anything remotely close to what had been before I left. Before Zexion died. Before I made a gigantic, gaping mistake.

It was, therefore, really not that surprising to find myself stumbling backward as he delivered a clean, sharp punch directly to my nose, giving me only a quick half-second to see that he had company.

"Yeh jus' couldn'a got it right, even once, could yeh?" Cid called from the living room, while Sora and Riku looked very alarmed.

"You…" Roxas rumbled angrily. "_You_."

**End Chapter Six**


	7. Halfway

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: So, I cringe at the fact that I've let this sit for over a month while my imagination has been going haywire over Avatar. I think I expected this story to be longer than **_**Ill Repute**_**, and a lot of things I imagined including kind of got shoved to the side (I had planned on including the side plot line about Roxas and Sora's father earlier, and somehow making it a story-long thing, instead of one more thing complicating Roxas's life). However, the story has pretty well written itself all the way from the beginning of **_**Ill Repute**_**, and I'm happy with how it's come out. The first story was very emotionally charged, frightening, shocking, and a way for me to step out of the box and take on a much more violent and challenging subject matter. When I began the story, I stated that undertones from **_**Ill Repute**_** were going to be the overtones of this story. The issues the boys have in the first aren't really forgotten, just not as important as the fact that they **_**are**_** in love and have to sort through that, which is a tough thing, even without their pasts and whatnot. **_**Phantom Touch**_ **is an exploration of the things that make them**** normal, given their abnormal circumstances.**** This chapter, in particular refers back to **_**Ill Repute**_**, and particularly the end of chapter three of that story.**** Thanks to everyone who's been patient with me while finishing this story. It's going to be wrapping up soon!**

_"I'm sick of shaking, __never waking __from the hell I achieve__d__. I never knew you till you left me __with the crying disease. Another curing, reassuring __way to buckle the knees__ So mistreated, I repeated__, n__ever blessing your __sneeze. __Now deleted and defeated __I will stand on my own. __Yeah your memory that punches me __has broken the bone. __Give me recipes for sorry __I'm admitting I'm wrong. __Still your memory that punches me has broken the bone__." __–__Blue October, "X Amount of Words"_

**Chapter Seven****: Halfway**

Cid had shown up to check on me for the first time since my breakdown in his last visit. He had sat down on my couch and asked how I was doing, filled me in on his life, and told me he had news he wasn't sure I would like. He had brought Sora and Riku, and asked my twin to sit next to me. He sat in a chair, leaning forward and looking serious. My heart sank at this, knowing it couldn't be good news.

"There's no bett'r way to put this," He began slowly, as though he were choosing his words very carefully. "Yuh'r father's in the hospital… He's probably not gonna make i', and he wants ta see his boys again."

Sora looked as though he'd been gut-punched, and I kept very still. Sora still didn't know that I had recovered a few memories. From what I'd seen, I didn't much care for my father or past life. I inhaled very slowly, touching Sora's shoulder. "Do we have to go?" The words were quiet and barely floated across the room.

Riku looked angry at the very idea. "No, of course you don't. Neither of you." Riku knew our story. He knew that Sora suffered from guilt and had endured only the occasional smack before I could intervene on his behalf. He knew what I had survived, and while Sora was his lover, we were like brothers.

Cid looked uncomfortable. "Ah can say tha' there's no one who worked tha case that'd wan' tha two of yuh to go." He shifted and looked at his hands. "But he is yuh'r father, an' tha two of yuh are ol' enough ta choose."

Riku frowned, moving to hold Sora, who looked positively terrified. I tried to breathe, but the sharp rap on the door drew me out of the reverie that was leading me to the conclusion I knew I would have to reach eventually.

"I'll get it." I stated, rising and walking to the door. There appeared to be no one at the door, and I opened it quizzically. My heart rate leaped at the sight waiting for me on the other side of the door. I began seething inside, heart pounding against my chest and blood rising into my face. I panted heavily, my body going numb as the edges of my vision blacked out, fading in and out of clarity. Before thinking, I pulled back my fist and slammed him in the face, wishing I could do more than broken ribs and wrists, glaring furiously at Axel. I wanted him to know the agony I'd had to endure in his absence; the months that became years of my worried yearning and loneliness. How could my life have transformed so completely in a matter of moments? Half an hour before I was still recovering from my last encounter with Axel and Cid's words that had stripped me to the rawest pain I could feel, and now those wounds weren't even reopened, but ripped anew.

Cid remarked something from behind me, but I couldn't move. "You…" My breath was shallow, and I was shaking, trembling in a vengeful fury I didn't know I could feel.

Axel pulled himself up, standing before me unabashedly. He looked beyond me to address Cid. "I threw away all that stuff you brought me…" He rubbed his nose and looked me square in the eye. "I thought it might be time to get over all that…"

I shoved him back, angrily pushing him back over and over. He caught a hand on the railing and frowned, letting me get all my frustration out. Riku was the one who came to the door, watching the scene unfold with crossed arms. After Axel had left, he told me that he believed in justice and Axel getting whatever he got for my pain. I didn't know if I believed that, or even if he had believed it, but he made no move to intervene until Sora stepped out of the apartment and bellowed for me to stop.

He had been really shaken about Dad, and that moment he was too weary and shaken to care about my battles with the past. Cid stepped past him and pushed us apart. "If tha two of yuh can' settle this properly, than Ah'll settle i' for yuh."

I backed off a few steps, glaring at Axel, anger and pain licking at my chest. "Fine."

Axel allowed himself to be led into my apartment by Cid, who was trying to mediate between two of his former charges with justice. He understood the both of us equally, and was trying desperately to keep me from taking Axel apart limb by limb in my emotional fury.

I followed grudgingly, sitting silently on the couch while they arranged for Axel's lodgings in Destati. He had business to attend to, including what I could only presume was an attempted patch job on my relationship with him. I now had my father's approaching death to grapple with. Knowing what I knew, could I handle seeing him again?

I tuned out the rest of the conversations, hardly caring where Axel would be, or if I would even see him again. He looked hurt when I didn't spare him even a side glance, staring blankly at my coffee table, thinking about all the choices being presented to me. I had so many different directions I could choose, and knowing which one to take was impossible at that point. When Cid left with Axel, Riku and Sora stared at me quizzically.

"Roxas? Are you okay?" Sora leaned over and stared at me.

I nodded numbly and stood. "Yeah…" I shook my head and paced a little, before heading for the door. "I'm going to go see Dad."

Sora looked stunned. "You are?" He paused, realization dawning on him. We didn't really need to talk about the memories I had been steadily recovering for him to suddenly grasp what I knew. "Are you sure?" His voice dropped.

I nodded slowly, then a little faster as I cemented my choice in my mind. "Yeah," I opened the door. "Yeah, I'm going now."

Sora nodded. "I'm sorry… I can't go. But… You're strong. Don't get down by anything he says." I left, closing the door behind me. Sora would lock up when he left with Riku, and would probably leave food in the microwave.

It wasn't a particularly long walk to the hospital, attached to my university, and I was breathing slowly and carefully. My heart hadn't completely stopped pounding since seeing Axel, and now I was going to see my dad again. It was like everything was collapsing in on itself in a mish-mashed jumble of past, present, and future.

"Fuck you, Axel." I whispered under my breath as the automatic doors to the hospital opened for me. I told the nurse at the desk what I was there for, who I was trying to see. She nodded and told me the room number and wing. When I walked off, I could feel her eyes watching me sadly, as though feeling sadness for me and the dying man I was going to see. She didn't know anything, but I didn't bother correcting her.

I rapped on the door once, then twice, before a rough voice called for me to enter. I pushed it open and took a few steps in. The smell of _hospital_ made me slightly nauseated, reminding me of worse days, and of violence I didn't much care to remember.

"Who's there?" The rough voice called, then coughed.

I didn't respond, simply came into the main area of the room, where my father was laying out in a hospital bed, looking pathetic. Regardless, he still inspired fear in my gut, which wrenched at the sight of him.

"Roxas." He looked stunned at seeing me. "You got the message, then?"

"Yes," I lowered myself into a chair. "Cid told me today."

"Who's Cid?" He demanded.

"My caretaker." I answered stoically, barely moving a muscle in my face to show one emotion or another. Everything (painfurywearinessterrornostalgia) was blurring in my head, and it was hard to pick one emotion out without dragging along the others.

"Why didn't Sora come?" His voice was raising with anger, and a machine started beeping angrily at him.

"He didn't want to."

The machine gave off a shrill alarm, attracting a nurse, who burst in and looked at the two of us. "Sir, you need to keep yourself in check!" She rounded on me. "What were you doing in here?"

"He's my father," I explained slowly, tasting the words for myself, and finding that they left a bitter taste. "We were talking. He just got a little over-excited."

She left with a huff, after shutting off the machine and checking my father's pulse and blood pressure.

"What do you mean, Sora didn't want to come?" He had his teeth clenched with fury, trying with obvious effort to keep calm.

"Precisely that," I told him coolly. "And, given our history, I can't say I blame him." I tapped the side of my head. "Lucky you, I still can't really remember all that much, so I still have a sense of curiosity and remorse."

He seethed outwardly, and opened and closed his fists. "You all, and those damn investigators… Just exaggerated the situation. Everything would have been just fine if you hadn't wandered off."

I forced myself to breathe slowly, keeping calm as he was not. "I've lost a lot of things, and people, over the years. I wanted to offer you forgiveness before you died, too." I closed my eyes and stood. "I've got a lot of shit going on in my life… I didn't want you to be one more regret." I walked to stand beside his bed, staring down at him with searching and piercing eyes. I was looking in his soul for some, any, hint of guilt, or apology. I didn't find one.

I started toward the door. "I'll come back and visit you soon." He hadn't bothered to answer me once, and simply watched as I left the room silently.

Years before, I had realized in Cid's halfway house that in order to get by in that world, I was going to have to put in my share of the effort. In order to get by in this world of normalcy, the same rules applied. I had gotten beyond the hurt and pain of my father's abuse and living my life without him by putting in the effort, and everyone meeting me halfway there. Now, I would have to put in the effort to forgive what had hurt me. I had to just wait at the halfway point and wait for my Dad to accept forgiveness and what he had done to need it.

When I walked home, staring at the sky, I stopped suddenly. It occurred to me that the same rule applied with Axel, and forgiving him for what he had done. In that case, however, Axel had already started heading for the halfway point, and was waiting for me to reach that realization. We were about to meet there, and I wondered vaguely exactly where we would go from there.

**End Chapter Seven**


	8. Reversal

**Phantom Touch**

**Chapter Eight: Reversal**

"_Part of where you're going is knowing where you're coming from. The hardest part of moving forward are these times where we all stand alone. No, but you'll never believe. For all these times that we walked away. For all these times that I heard you say, 'Give me something to believe in. Give me someone to believe in'. For all these times, and it starts today." –Lostprophets, "For All These Times Kid, For All These Times"_

Roxas hadn't looked back when he left for the hospital, and I appreciated it for the moment. I knew the time where we would have to talk was coming quickly, but neither I nor my nose was looking forward to the encounter. Roxas wouldn't be looking forward to it either. I leaned back on Cid's couch, pushing thoughts out of my head. I didn't entirely know why I came back to Destati. I didn't know why I came to see Roxas. I didn't know… anything, really. Enough had happened to make me doubt my own path, and yet still not enough had happened to satisfy whatever it was within me that had kept me from Destati.

Cid ignored me for the most part, letting me stew in my own confusion for a while, but the way the front door banged open in a familiar way I would never forget told me that someone else wasn't likely to allow the same courtesy. I cringed as Demyx strode in with a fixed frown on his face.

"Hi." I managed weakly.

The blond only managed a stern glare unbefitting of his nature, and I stared down at my hands in acceptance of his dominating fury. He dropped himself into a chair opposite the puce couch and I could feel his eyes boring into my head. "You came back." He finally managed.

"Yeah," I flicked my thumb over my knuckles, hopelessly trying to distract myself from his stare.

"No one thought you were coming back except Roxas," His stare was boring into me. "No one wanted it, either, given what it was liable to do to him."

I didn't respond, knowing that as soon as he was finished admonishing me we would be back as we had been before. Family was like that.

Demyx buried his face into his hands with a long sigh. He sounded so much older than I would have ever imagined him to be, and that brought my stare back up to his weary form. "Axel…" He sighed, and then looked back up. "I can't bring myself to defend what you did, no matter how much pain you were in."

"I came back to make it right." I interrupted. "It was a long time ago, Demyx—"

"It wasn't that long ago, Axel!" He cried.

"Long enough that we've all grown up and out of that time. We've had to cope with the shit we were dealt, and now we're supposed to be adults. We can't play these dramatics anymore." I trailed off, staring at the floor again. "We're too old to keep running away and keep hating without a reason. So I came back. I'm not running away anymore, and if you hate me after all this, you'll be perfectly within your rights. I just… can't pretend these things never happened."

Demyx stared at me curiously as I rose off the couch. "You've grown up, Axel."

I extended a hand to help him up. "So have you," He took the hand and I braced to help him up. He tugged me into a brotherly hug. "So has Roxas."

"You're going to have to deal with him now, you know."

"I know."

"And that left hook of his."

I smiled a little. "I know."

"And he's probably going to never forgive you."

"As long as he doesn't forget me." I quipped back, glad that I had been right about Demyx and I returning to much of the same brotherly affection we had once shared.

There was a long silence where we stared one another down before Demyx finally broke it with a well-aimed barb. "What are you going to do with Roxas?"

I looked down. "I don't know."

"I meant romantically. That's why he was so torn up when you left—why it took so long for him to try and get over you, and why he wanted some kind of revenge." He was staring into me again and it was will power alone that brought me to lift my gaze.

"I know… and I still don't know what to do. I was young, I was stupid, we moved too fast, said things that don't really hold right now in this world. And I have to live with the fact that maybe I made a mistake because of my desperation to have _someone_ to be with in that hell. I've tried to figure out what love is, and all I know is that it wasn't that, and it wasn't anything I've had since then."

"You're a selfish son-of-a-bitch." Demyx didn't mean any harm by the phrase, and I smiled with a little bit of sadness.

"Yeah, I am," I jammed my hands into my pockets. "But how fair would it be for me to just let him stew in that righteous heartbreak forever if it wasn't really genuine? He needs to move on, and if getting even with me—" I gestured to my nose at this and then prodded my bruised ribs. 

"will make him get over it faster so he can really be happy, then I'm more than willing to let him have his revenge."

The door swung open and Sora walked in, permanent surprise etched into his features when he looked at me. I had tried to imagine what Sora was going through, watching his brother—his twin—endure the varying kinds of pain he had for so long. Roxas had been Sora's whipping boy long enough to establish guilty subordination to his personality where Roxas was concerned, and I had underestimated him as the sort of pansy-hearted boy that made the rest of us seem weak. He hadn't ever shown me anything other than that side until he calmly walked toward me, balled up his fist, and rammed it into my gut.

I closed my eyes, seeing stars from the blinding pain in my ribs. "Thanks, Sora." I grunted, trying to recompose myself.

"No problem," He crossed his arms across his chest and regarded me with a sort of removed curiosity. "Roxas wanted to see you."

I frowned immediately, and it wasn't from Sora's punch. "Yeah, I guess it's time to start clearing up the mess I left."

"You're being awfully grown up about this." Demyx hadn't moved during my exchange with Sora, and still didn't give me more than a once-over as I dusted myself off.

"Getting hit by a truck will do that to you," I sighed, then brushed some hair out of my face. "I really just don't want to leave this alone anymore." Roxas would have had plenty of time to think about how to deal with me, and now he was asking to see me.

"Would you let him know where to meet me?" I straightened and looked at Sora with a faint smile.

He nodded and agreed to bring his brother along in the short half-hour it would take for the both of us to arrive at a remote, unremarkable café in city center. Demyx agreed to walk with me, and we set off immediately, walking in silence.

"What are you going to tell him?" He asked me apprehensively.

"Everything." I looked up to the late afternoon sky. "He's had a couple days to cool off from the other day, and deal with his dad. He'll probably need a few more after this."

A pause. "Are you going to go back after this?"

I bit the inside of my lip. "Probably," I came back down to earth. "I don't really belong here anymore, Demyx. I have a whole new life there, where I don't have to worry about the past haunting me. Besides, it might be too hard for him if I do stay."

Demyx didn't say anything for a long time, until just before we sat down at a small table for two. "I think you're pretending a lot of things didn't exist."

I ordered a coffee and stirred it aimlessly in silence until I spotted Roxas and sunk unconsciously lower into my seat.

Demyx stood up and clasped Sora's shoulder, who remained standing as Roxas stared at the now vacant chair with an apprehensive glare. "Sora and I'll be going." He announced, giving Roxas's back a kind—almost pitying—smile.

Sora's eyebrows were knit tightly as he battled something within himself. Finally, he leaned over the table to stare me in the eye. "Don't be stupid, stupid."

I didn't ask him to elaborate, but nodded, staring at Roxas as he sluggishly took the empty seat. Our companions left without another word, and we stared at one another for a long moment. "How's your dad?" I asked quietly.

"Dying." Roxas replied without adding any inflection to the word. It wasn't anger, and it wasn't sadness. He seemed more weary than anything, staring at my cup. "I made peace with him… with everything that's happened. He's not going to live the week out, so Sora's going to see him tonight." He bowed his head to avoid looking at anything but his hands.

"And you?"

"Better."

I shifted and tried to focus on the street. "I'm not staying in Destati."

He shifted. "I know you're not."

"I wanted to make things…" I struggled for a moment to find an appropriate word. Right didn't seem to fit to the situation; nothing could really make things "right" again, as they never had been in the first place. "Better." I finished.

"They are, at least a little bit." There was a biting hope at the end that twisted my gut.

"Roxas, I can't do anything but apologize. I… I really fucked up back then," I held up a hand to keep him from interrupting. "Not like what you think. I was going to leave no matter what. What I shouldn't have done was dragged you down this road; made you think I was in love with you, and then rip that away. It was… unendingly selfish of me to have used you like I did."

Fury flashed in his eyes for an instant before being quelled immediately. "So, you lied."

I looked up at him, meeting those turbulent eyes. "Not intentionally. At the time… I don't know what I thought. Maybe I really just hoped I was in love, because it meant I didn't have to be alone when I had to make the choice to leave. I knew at the time that I was hurting you, and that hurt me more than you can ever imagine."

"I did love you." He admitted quietly.

"I know," was all I could manage, wishing I could break the connection between our eyes. "And that puts me that much farther in the wrong for not putting things right to start with."

"When did you figure out how you… felt?" His tone was eerily calm.

"After I left. After… I don't know, after it all hit me as to what I'd done. And when I saw you, I was… horrified. I took a lot of things from you that I really had no right to, in the name of what? Being afraid of being alone?" I shook my head. "Roxas, I know it doesn't… make things much better, but I want you to at least be… happy." I choked a little on the last word and his stare became more intense.

"You… didn't look happy when I saw you, and I know you weren't happy after that when I came here. Every letter you sent seemed more and more desperate. Every moment… And then Cid brought me my things, and I realized what I'd done in my selfishness."

Roxas stood very suddenly. "You've grown up a lot since then, Axel."

I stood as well, leaving my stone-cold coffee on the table. "So have you."

And then, inexplicably, he smiled at me. It wasn't sarcastic, sad, or even pitying. "I've got a bit more to do, then," He extended a hand to shake, and I took it slowly. "Maybe I'll see you."

"You will. I can come back again without feeling as much guilt," I shook his hand and felt a twist in my chest that kept tightening as we dropped the formal clasp.

He nodded and turned without another word, walking away without another word, back straight and shoulders squared. I felt a sense of déjà vu, only somehow reversed, and immediately recognized the twist in my chest that only strengthened with every step he took away, even though I had never quite felt it before.

"Roxas," I murmured quietly, vaguely surprised with my accursed timing. He really had grown over the last years from the quiet, troubled kid I'd met and left behind. Where, I wondered, had he borrowed his strength from?

"Roxas…," I clenched the hand I'd shaken his with and looked down to the dirty pavement.

"I love you."

**End Chapter Eight**

**Note: Plan for an epilogue to follow this chapter, as this is technically the last chapter of the story. Since there is an extended amount of time taking place between this chapter and the next installment, I decided making it the final "chapter" didn't make much sense. If you like bittersweet endings, you can leave things as they are right now, with the knowledge that the door is opened. Or you can read my version of the events to follow in the epilogue, which I hope to have completed this weekend. **

**Please (please, please, please) do not leave me reviews demanding the next chapter (or "reminding" me, for that matter) if it doesn't come up as soon as I'd like. Unfortunately my life is not quite as structured as I'd like. I know this is the first update in five months, but the last five months have been the last of my college career—I graduated May 3****rd****, 2008. Everything from my last round of updates until now was solely dedicated to completing my school work and graduation requirements, and then moving back home. I haven't forgotten about my writing, I simply haven't had the time to properly dedicate to making it the best it possibly could be. This is literally the first whole thing I've been able to write since January, and overcoming the block associated with school has been difficult. In between now and the next update, I will be contemplating the possibility of a Sora/Riku companion to this story and its possible format (I doubt I will be undertaking another multi-chapter story, seeing as I have multiple others to occupy my time for now). I'll have more details next time!**


	9. Redemption

**Phantom Touch**

**Note: This is the last installment of this universe, and I'm pretty happy with how this finally came out. It took a while to take shape like I wanted, but I'm glad it finally came out and was finished. I want to thank everyone who's still reading this, and for being patient as my life took a thousand turns since this story was started (two years ago!). My life is in a completely different place than it was when this story was started, and the outcome reflects that. Regardless, I hope to see those who float through fandoms in my future stories. Please enjoy this final chapter!**

**Epilogue: Redemption**

"_I leapt across three or four beds into your arms, where I had hidden myself somewhere in your charm. Our golden handshake has been smashed into this shape, it's taking magic to a primitive new place." –The New Pornographers, "The Bleeding Heart Show"_

It was unseasonly cold in Destati the day of the funeral, and between the nature of the man being buried and the icy rain pounding the dirty pavement, there were very few mourners in attendance. Sora had, at the last moment, changed his mind and decided to come to the funeral with a grim frown firmly planted on his mouth. Riku had offered to go with him, but Sora had immediately refused the favor and left Riku at their apartment with assurances that he would absolutely be fine.

Roxas had been the first to arrive at the cemetary where his father was being buried, long before even the body arrived to its final resting place. He stood by the open hole, black umbrella keeping the rain at bay, and stared into it, as though it held the answers he had been searching for. When Sora trudged up the slick hill, he paused for a moment before interrupting the quiet bubble Roxas seemed to have closed himself within.

"It's hard to believe he's really gone." The words weren't sentimental, but held a hint of the sour taste stuck in Sora's mouth.

Roxas smiled bitterly. "Bastard just didn't know when to give up and go," He offered his umbrella to his twin, who stepped underneath and sloshed mud at the hole.

"I just… didn't think it was possible." Sora looked ashamed at this confession. "It always felt like he was a dark shadow that couldn't go away, no matter how far we got away from him. I didn't want to see him again because of that… Like he could get hold of you and I again if we went back."

"But we did, and he's gone. This is…" Roxas trailed off, reliving the months since his reunion with their father. "This is how we heal, I guess."

Sora was quiet for a long time, comfortable in leaving Roxas in silence, before he sighed. "Are you healing? I mean… You've been trying really hard to pretend like you weren't hurt when Axel finally left."

Roxas wanted to tell Sora that it wasn't the right time or place to talk about that particular aspect of his personal life, but he wasn't sure there would ever be a right time and place as far as he was concerned. "I suppose."

Sora's frown deepened. "That doesn't sound promising."

The blond handed off the umbrella to his brunet counterpart and stepped out into the rain, looking for any others arriving. Axel had come to visit Destati exactly twice since their last real interaction, and in those visits they had only seen one another in brief passing. "It takes time… just to put myself back together; figure myself out. So much of my life was rooted in the feelings I had for him, in being hurt, that it's hard to sort out who I am underneath all that."

Sora gave him a reassuring smile. "That's evasive…" He held the umbrella back over his brother. "I suppose it might be safe to say that you still have feelings for him?"

He was answered with a frown. "It's not the same as it was before, Sora. He's different, I'm different… So I don't… but I do. New ones," He paused, catching sight of a small group of people trudging up the hill. "Ones I can get over."

The twins stepped away from the grave and waited for the arriving coffin. Sora reached over and took his brother's hand. "Just like we'll get over this."

The ceremony was unremarkable, with few tears and fewer kind remarks. There wasn't much anyone could or would say about the dead man, and everyone but the twins and the man to bury their father left immediately. The slow progress of burying the coffin was steadily observed by Roxas, while Sora shook in rage and witheld tears. After the work was done, the man bowed slightly and left with his shovel, and Sora released his rage.

"It's over…" The tears that fell hot from his eyes contrasted with the cold rain on their faces as he screamed at the mound of dirt. His words had started quiet, but now rang across the hill, ignoring the rain's attempt to muffle his pain. He picked up a stone and flung it at the dirt and Roxas gently touched Sora's shoulder, who was still shaking. "That son-of-a-bitch…"

The umbrella lay forgotten on the ground when the brothers embraced, holding onto one another tightly.

"He's gone, Sora." Roxas reminded him.

"He didn't pay enough for what he did… Our lives… We could have been so different. We could have been _happy_ all those years." Sora was calming down; the panic in his voice had faded with only a slight indication that he might be hoarse the following morning.

"And we will be happy." He picked up the umbrella and led the brunet down the hill, away from the hated grave. "We'll come back in a year, and in five years, and we'll see how far we've come from where we were… We'll show him that he couldn't keep us from that."

Slow progress through the rain helped Roxas deliver a much calmer Sora to Riku at their apartment before he headed home. Riku had offered to let him stay until the rain let up, but Roxas had declined with a smile and a parting wave. The truth was that he wanted Riku to take care of Sora's anxiety, because it was the only way to make sure Sora knew that there were people other than his brother who would ensure his happiness.

For a long moment, he considered visiting Demyx over going home, but ultimately decided that he would be imposing on such a dreary day. He headed home alone, steeling himself for a long day of lonely silence, and more weeks of "healing".

He had started up his stairs with a dejected air, pausing halfway up to look out at the cold rain on the concrete streets. This, he decided, was the start of something new. He'd done everything he had wanted with the problems that had plagued him for so long, and it was time to move past the obstacles which had stalled him in the same place for years.

"Time to move on…" He murmured to himself before heading up the rest of his stairs.

What was waiting outside his apartment door was not what he had been expecting, least of all on a miserable day on which he was burying his past.

Axel didn't smile nervously, as he had thought he might. He didn't beg forgiveness, or throw himself at the feet of his former lover. Instead, he shifted away from the wall he had been leaning against. "Demyx said your dad was being buried today."

Roxas struggled for a moment between screaming as Sora had and crying like he never did before nodding. "Yeah, I just came from Sora's apartment," He paused a moment, staring at the key that now sat cold and wet in his hand. "Riku's taking care of him today."

"What about you?" The question fell from Axel's lips before he had the chance to stop them.

An awkward silence threatened to settle over the pair before Roxas stepped forward, toward Axel and the door. "No. I was planning on… well, staying in today."

Green and blue eyes both stared at the ground.

"Well, I… wanted to make sure you were okay."

Roxas looked up, trying to determine why Axel looked so awkward and uncomfortable. It was, after all, he who had come to see him and not the other way around. "I appreciate that."

Axel looked up, meeting his eyes and staring at him for a long moment. "I didn't lie."

Roxas felt his stomach twist, wishing Axel hadn't chosen this particular day and moment to do this to him. "I know. But you're still here." He took another step toward the door, and Axel hesitated before stepping away from the door—toward Roxas.

"I didn't want you to be alone today." Was all he managed, but Roxas understood. Axel hadn't really loved him when they had lived together, but he did love the person he was.

He looked away. "You know it's not that easy, Axel."

"I know…" The pause didn't last long before Axel stepped forward again, leaving no more than a foot between the two. "One step at a time, until it is that easy again."

Roxas was weary of fighting, of being alone with his struggles, and he wondered if that wasn't why he opened the door to his apartment, but later dismissed the notion. "I'm not sure I want to be alone today."

Axel stepped through the doorway. "You don't have to be." Was what he said, but he meant to tell Roxas that he wouldn't have to be so lonely again.

He didn't have to: Roxas understood.

**End**


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